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As I understand you, Kinzo is dead and therefore no one could've been in the room, no one could've gotten out of the room, and no one could've put the paper back in the wedge.

This doesn't work since just because person A is dead does not mean a person cannot enter or exit Person A's room, or that no one could put the paper back in the Person A's door wedge.

For example, Sarah is dead. This doesn't mean, however, that someone couldn't enter or exit Sarah's room, nor does it mean that if someone put a wedge in Sarah's door, that no one can put it back.

From the way I see it, there is a possibility that someone and anyone or anything could've been in Kinzo's room. It or he could've gotten out of the room, then either noticed the paper and put it back or someone has.

To further answer your question, as a mystery novel reader, you shouldn't assume that broken seals can be reset by unknowing individuals. Forget it. It's pointless. Just solve the mystery already. After all, you're already reading the ANSWER arcs.

When you finish Ep5, you will understand why I am being this blunt. Familiarize yourself with Knox's Decalogue. Then come back and discuss this with us.

It's unclear if Battler's perspective (observing both Kanon and Shannon together) is an accurate representation of what's going on as he isn't considered the detective at that current point. Ryukishi may have left that in as a trap to fool people from believing they were separate people, or as a trap in a trap to make them into a red-herring. Either way, it's possible to make a plausible theory in each case at the moment.

Knox's 8th: It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not presented.
What clues are presented that they are the same person? Please tell me. And is Battler really that bad at math? And Erika the detective knows her math as well. Why doesn't the detective suspect unknown culprit X? Because he doesn't exist.

Of course, the detective wouldn't lie about that:Knox's 7th: It is forbidden for the detective to be the culprit.
Naturally, she isn't the accomplice either.

Knox's 10th: It is forbidden for a character to disguise themselves as another without any clues.
That includes disguising oneself as two people, naturally. Do you have substantial clues? Really?

Knox's 8th: It is forbidden for the case to be resolved with clues that are not presented.
What clues are presented that they are the same person? Please tell me. And is Battler really that bad at math? And Erika the detective knows her math as well. Why doesn't the detective suspect unknown culprit X? Because he doesn't exist.

Of course, the detective wouldn't lie about that:Knox's 7th: It is forbidden for the detective to be the culprit.
Naturally, she isn't the accomplice either.

Knox's 10th: It is forbidden for a character to disguise themselves as another without any clues.
That includes disguising oneself as two people, naturally. Do you have substantial clues? Really?

I honestly forgot about Knox's tenth and I guess many others forgot it when they came up with Shkannon theory.

Here is the problem with it though. It is not defined what a "clue" is. A clue could be foreshadowing, it could be a statement somebody said (circumstantial evidence), it doesn't have to be a physical clue... So if there is foreshadowing that Kanon wasn't really on the island in 1986 than it could work as long as the culprit is someone mentioned in the early part of the story. (Knox's First) In that case it doesn't violate the rules it's just that that twisted kind of logic might not be believable.

Just keep in mind that although the story is now confirmed to follow the Knox's Decalogue as classic Mystery it is open to interpretation. And the laws don't have to agree with each other.

Quote:

The debate over the context of these laws (the Knox's decalouge) continues to this very day and it has become the source of many unfair controversies. While Fundamentalists call any infringement upon these commandments heresy, revisionists point out that many canonized geniuses have violated these rules.

Also I want to point out that the original Knox's third said: "It is forbidden for more than one hidden passage to exist."

I assume Ryukishi07 purposely didn't write it like that in Umineko because the entrance to the Kuwadorian ( or the place with the hidden gold, whichever you prefer) is the only hidden passage on the island.

I think it's convenient that he left out Knox's 5th because if that was said in red than nobody on the island could've been the culprit.

I'd have to agree to the extent that it definitely leaves that sort of impression. Honestly I can't really recall reading anything that has managed to hug several genre quite as well as Umineko has been doing. I think probably the most interesting aspect is going to be how all these different off-shoots are going to be resolved. Personally I can't imagine it concluding in a way which denies any of the different aspects as it would seem to be against the 'spirit' of the work - if that makes any sense; however it may be possible for readers to make their own conclusions which deny the different facets, especially if 'answers' are left open ended.

It was already denied. Magic is a lie.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bereal31

I am sorry, but this doesn't work for me.

As I understand you, Kinzo is dead and therefore no one could've been in the room, no one could've gotten out of the room, and no one could've put the paper back in the wedge.

This doesn't work since just because person A is dead does not mean a person cannot enter or exit Person A's room, or that no one could put the paper back in the Person A's door wedge.

For example, Sarah is dead. This doesn't mean, however, that someone couldn't enter or exit Sarah's room, nor does it mean that if someone put a wedge in Sarah's door, that no one can put it back.

From the way I see it, there is a possibility that someone and anyone or anything could've been in Kinzo's room. It or he could've gotten out of the room, then either noticed the paper and put it back or someone has.

TeeHee first answer was irrelevant. The whole point of that battle was to demonstrate that Kinzo was dead, the red truth about Kinzo being dead couldn't be used by detective means and wasn't used.

The reasons as to why Kinzo couldn't escape from the door is

1) the seal couldn't be placed in the same position if it was someone from inside that opened the door, because from inside it couldn't be seen.

2) the door can only be opened with the 2 keys of the study, however the only person that possess them is Natsuhi. The whole point of Erika is to claim that Natsuhi is suspicious after all.

With a little imagination you can still think of many possibilities, for examples, there are more than 2 keys to open that door, there is someone that is able to open the door by lockpicking, Kinzo had an accomplice outside that noticed the seal and carefully replaced it in the same position.

In the real world it would be impossible to deny this, but it is a sad fact that Erika in this game doesn't need a 100% certainty to elevate theories to red truth, do not expect that or you are going insane. She will do worse.

Quote:

I honestly forgot about Knox's tenth and I guess many others forgot it when they came up with Shkannon theory.

lol they came up with the theory back at Ep2 I think, knox rules weren't even known to have any affect on this game.

Quote:

Here is the problem with it though. It is not defined what a "clue" is. A clue could be foreshadowing, it could be a statement somebody said (circumstantial evidence), it doesn't have to be a physical clue... So if there is foreshadowing that Kanon wasn't really on the island in 1986 than it could work as long as the culprit is someone mentioned in the early part of the story. (Knox's First) In that case it doesn't violate the rules it's just that that twisted kind of logic might not be believable.

Considering that Battler seeing Kinzo is considered a "clue" that Battler isn't the detective I think TeeHee is expecting too much from a clue. The fact that Battler could never see both of them at the same time in the first 4 arcs was a pretty good clue imho, as well as the fact he couldn't see both corpses in EP4 or in any episode for what matters. Of course this doesn't apply anymore since EP5, but back then there wasn't any problem.

I honestly forgot about Knox's tenth and I guess many others forgot it when they came up with Shkannon theory.

Spoiler for space:

Here is the problem with it though. It is not defined what a "clue" is. A clue could be foreshadowing, it could be a statement somebody said (circumstantial evidence), it doesn't have to be a physical clue... So if there is foreshadowing that Kanon wasn't really on the island in 1986 than it could work as long as the culprit is someone mentioned in the early part of the story. (Knox's First) In that case it doesn't violate the rules it's just that that twisted kind of logic might not be believable.

Just keep in mind that although the story is now confirmed to follow the Knox's Decalogue as classic Mystery it is open to interpretation. And the laws don't have to agree with each other.

Also I want to point out that the original Knox's third said: "It is forbidden for more than one hidden passage to exist."

I assume Ryukishi07 purposely didn't write it like that in Umineko because the entrance to the Kuwadorian ( or the place with the hidden gold, whichever you prefer) is the only hidden passage on the island.

I think it's convenient that he left out Knox's 5th because if that was said in red than nobody on the island could've been the culprit.

"Knox's 5th: It is forbidden for any chinaman to be the culprit."

In the tips this commandment is omitted.

But do you even realize the whole reason why Ryukishi07 is even using Knox's Decalogue? It's because too many people are hell-bent on trying the Anti-Fantasy method rather than the Mystery method. The truth is that if you try to solve it like a traditional mystery, the Anti-Fantasy aspect is already taken care of.

R7 was being nice to customize the Knox rules just for the Umineko series. We are guaranteed that there are no secret passages. We are given - on a plate - all of the constraints needed to create the possible paths of the pieces on the chess board.

The original Knox rules were written in the 1920's, and they serve as a good guideline for writing a mystery novel. Conveniently, we are told that over the course of Ep5 that Umineko really is - at its heart - ...... A MYSTERY NOVEL.

If you understand that, you can solve it! Simple.

Edit: Oh yeah, the bottom line is that Ryukishi07 isn't trying to "trick" you by saying, "Oh, Shannon and Kanon are the same people, even though the other sixteen people in the room see that there are 18 people in the room." Please. If you are seriously trying to solve the mystery, then avoid that route by all means.

I had a theory after watching episode 5's ??? thing that to use the gold truth Battler needed to know Umineko's rule Y. Like in Higurashi there are rules X Y and Z. Rule X is said to be like the story starting on June 20th i.e Higurashi. You can learn more about this from Bern's letter in the Umineko wiki. Rule Y is kind of vague it's a world Beato knows of, but Lamda and Bern only vaguely know about. Rule Z is described as being like a maze so I thought that might be the answer to the epitaph or something.

At first I was looking at the letter and wondering who it was sent to, but I realized that was useless. The point was the message not the person it was addressed to.

Then the meta world is a very intricate, confusing and powerful lie. I can't really imagine how one could possibly explain it without some recourse to something which could be described as 'magic.'

Well the goal of the game isn't really to deny the meta world, or even explain it. So don't get hung up on that. What you have to explain is how all the murders happen in the human world without the witch or her familiars as the culprits.

Remember Umineko is a mystery and in mystery novels you often have to reread them until you find the answer.

Spoiler for What Dlanor said:

That's why Dlanor said to "reread it several times".

When you do find the answer to a mystery novel it's usually something obvious and you go "why didn't I think of that before?". We try to complicate the answer by adding in lots of different ideas, but a lot of times the answer is really very simple.

As encouragement remember these red truths

Battler is incompetent

Beato wanted you to solve it, so she made this game...the riddles of this tale...solvable.

Edit: Oh yeah, the bottom line is that Ryukishi07 isn't trying to "trick" you by saying, "Oh, Shannon and Kanon are the same people, even though the other sixteen people in the room see that there are 18 people in the room." Please. If you are seriously trying to solve the mystery, then avoid that route by all means.

Oh I don't think Ryukishi07 is trying to trick me. Shkannon is just a theory and it's hard to refute. It's strength from the fact that in episode 5 the story is always written in third person from Battler's, an observer's, perspective (Knox's 9th). It's never written in first person from Erika's perspective (Knox's 7th). So we don't know Erika's perspective on that. R7 did say in an interview that we can't trust Battler's perspective in episode 5.

Spoiler for spoiler:

More evidence for this theory is that Kanon, Shannon, George, and Jessica are on the cover for episode 6

I don't really WANT to believe in the Shkanon theory because it's too complicated. I'm just holding onto it until it's refuted.

Oh I don't think Ryukishi07 is trying to trick me. Shkannon is just a theory and it's hard to refute. It's strength from the fact that in episode 5 the story is always written in third person from Battler's, an observer's, perspective (Knox's 9th). It's never written in first person from Erika's perspective (Knox's 7th). So we don't know Erika's perspective on that. R7 did say in an interview that we can't trust Battler's perspective in episode 5.

Spoiler for spoiler:

More evidence for this theory is that Kanon, Shannon, George, and Jessica are on the cover for episode 6

I don't really WANT to believe in the Shkanon theory because it's too complicated. I'm just holding onto it until it's refuted.

The lure of the Shkannon theory is a tempting one. It's all too easy to fall prey to it's promise of easy solutions for every game. After all, if Shannon and Kanon are the same person, then we could still have Mystery Person X floating around the island killing people and then melting into the shadows. A number of difficult mysteries can be solved just by saying "When Kanon 'died', what really happened was the personality of Kanon died in Shannon's mind. So when Kanon died in Jessica's room, he simply vanished from Shannon's mind, which is why we never found his body." And so on, and so on...

There are a few subtle clues that could support this, aside from a simple "Battler never saw the two of them at the same time". I recall a scene in Episode 2 where Genji and Gohda are instructing Shannon to take dinner up to Beatrice. Kanon was there too, hiding in the shadows around the corner, whispering to Shannon all the things she should be thinking herself. Genji and Gohda didn't notice him, and when Shannon turned around he was gone. Little things like that.

My main problem with the theory is that invites the abdication of thought. It seems too perfect, so it makes you want to stop thinking since it's tricked you into thinking everything has been solved.

I've considered the possibility, and I can't really support it. But it's always in my mind as a fallback position if my current theories fall apart.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mirrored

Random Comments

I think that Umineko is not actually a Fantasy or a Mystery, but it is actually in the genre of Romance.

While we continually see the struggle between Fantasy and Mystery which continually ends in stalemate, there is a possibility of something that could break it.

Interesting thought. It reminds me of a scene (forget which game, maybe the second?) where Kyrie is saying that she considers the romance genre alot more mysterious than the actual mystery genre. She says something along the lines of "The feelings between between a man and a woman can be much, much harder to understand than some simple closed room problem." Not an exact quote by any means, but I think you get the idea.

Then the meta world is a very intricate, confusing and powerful lie. I can't really imagine how one could possibly explain it without some recourse to something which could be described as 'magic.'

The metaworld doesn't exist. It's just a metaphysical representation of something that happens in the real world. We have had many hints in EP5. For example the discussion inside Kinzo's study in the metaworld translated in a strange metaphysical battle with the iron maidens and the siestas overseeing it.

That one is troublesome. Kanon's death was confirmed in that episode before he appeared later to the servants. Also Shannon was still running around and being visible to Battler.

In other words that episode only leaves the possibility that Shannon was disguising as Kanon and not the other way around. Unless you use the "jedi truth trick" to claim that Kanon being dead only means that the Kanon personality died.

Kanon didn't appear in the servants' room. Shannon, Genji, and Gohda all lied to Rosa. Note the way Gohda gets tongue-tied at first; he gets tongue-tied in a similar way in episode 4 when describing the first twilight.

Kanon didn't appear in the servants' room. Shannon, Genji, and Gohda all lied to Rosa. Note the way Gohda gets tongue-tied at first; he gets tongue-tied in a similar way in episode 4 when describing the first twilight.

I was thinking along those lines.

It looks like my next task is to map out episode 2.

@Knicknevin: I know you have your theories, but I want to see where my analysis goes, and then we can take it from there.

Edit: But don't hesitate if something is on your mind.

Last edited by TeeHee; 2010-01-12 at 18:11.
Reason: Redundancy. Sheesh!

Episode 2 eh? I'll be interested to see that, maybe it will clarify my thinking some.

I've been trying to go over Episode 5 in my mind, with an eye toward proving Kyrie the culprit of that episode, or perhaps Eva (or an alliance of both).

Unfortunately, I've gotten rather stuck. The theory I was working on fell apart as soon as I tried to explain what possessed Rosa, Krauss, Genji and the cousins aside from Battler to fake their deaths.

What were they doing? Getting Krauss and Genji to play along with this act is doubly odd, since it threatens to expose their secret.

Is this an act for Erika's sake? Jessica hates her. Hell, even Battler hates her. Was this a ploy to humiliate her and let Battler and Jessica get even a little? For the faked death plan to work, the cousins must have either worked it out well ahead of time, or else Rosa came back and filled them in at 1:00 am.

This episode doesn't present any closed room mysteries for us to puzzle over like the previous games did. It's easy enough to assume the killer found a chance to slip away from the group and commit the murders, since most of them could have happened at almost any time. Hideyoshi wasn't killed. The how of this game isn't even an issue.

Even the letter and the knock are a non issue. It's the same tricky red truth that was used to explain Kanon's death in Episode 1- Lambda goes out of her way to meticulously explain all the ways the letter didn't get there, and to explain all the ways the knock couldn't have been misinterpreted, but she never makes one vital point- She never says in the red that the letter was even found, or that the knock ever happened. I can't even recall the signet ring being mentioned after the scene where Battler put it on. That whole scene might have been a confabulation.

On the other hand, the why and who of this episode... I'm not even sure we can solve it yet. The viewpoint is unreliable, the detective is manipulating the truth to fit her own theory, and the game ends early. I really don't know what to make of it all yet.

Virgilia called it a game 'without Beatrice', and then challenged Battler to find Beatrice within it anyway.

So where is Beatrice? What is she doing? And what drove her into the shadows of this game?

Unfortunately, I've gotten rather stuck. The theory I was working on fell apart as soon as I tried to explain what possessed Rosa, Krauss, Genji and the cousins aside from Battler to fake their deaths.

How about this then? Kyrie convinced SOME of them to fake their deaths and killed the others who didn't agree to it. I mean she said herself that she can be loving and yet ruthless at times. The ones that faked their deaths hid in the Kuwadorian or the chapel the others were killed for knowing too much (Genji, Krauss, Hideyoshi, etc).

If you wanted to you could even claim that none of the cousins died in that game until the end because their bodies would have to be moved if they died in the guests bedroom. Also maybe Rosa wanted to protect Maria so she played along.

Edit: Maybe the reason Rosa played along was because since Maria was having fun she wasn't saying "Uu" as much anymore. Did any of you notice that? I only counted maybe 3 "Uu's" in episode 5. Maria must have been having a A LOT of fun with her mom in that one.

I can come up with dozens of reasons for Kyrie, she's a manipulative bastard. . She's really my favorite culprit to deduce for becuase she'd make a perfect mastermind character

Also keep in mind that during the phone calls with Natsuhi. In the japanese version, the first caller used "Boku", the second caller used "ore". So for the second call George and Jessica are potential crank callers, and they could have gone along with a fake death plot if they REALLY wanted to freak her out.